Nation: Cosmos 954: An Ugly Death

No cause for panic, said the U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew
Brzezinski. It had merely been "a space age difficulty ... There is no
danger."

The little difficulty that Brzezinski so soothingly soft-pedaled was the
fiery return to earth of Cosmos 954a Soviet spy-in-the-sky satellite
carrying a nuclear reactor to power its ocean-scanning radar and radio
circuitry. The craft crashed into the atmosphere over a remote Canadian
wilderness area last week, apparently emitting strong radiation.
American space scientists admitted that if the satellite had...